Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

I must admit forums are getting quieter, I dislike Facebook but 2 (franchise I belong to) in house closed groups are extremely active as a number of significant changes to vehicle leasing, IT communications and administration have been made in the last 6-7 months, so this has taken priority leaving general forums taking a back seat. I no longer look at general Facebook ADI groups as they are mostly garbage, if anyone manages to start an interesting thread it soon drops down too deep to be seen squashed down be more and more tripe.

Hopefully the serious posters will eventually return to forums like this. But it is posible that new ADI's that were big Facebook users before becoming ADI's may never have looked in at other forums so know no different, perhaps there could be some way of encouraging them to look in and take part.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Not everyone logs in when reading the forum. What you can see are "registered users online". There are many "guests" reading the forum (currently 100) also, remember that 822 users isn't strictly members, they are mainly bots crawling through pages making up the numbers.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

It probably IS the time of year, and perhaps the various topics & themes have been exhausted.I was going to post a thread about my very first driving test that I conducted yesterday (Sunday) under the NT's new licence testing outsourcing system (most NT instructors can conduct tests as long as they haven't given lessons to the candidate).However it's a very long post which might drive forum readers away in droves, I'll edit it and post later.

Re facebook, my Colleague Connie was reading another instructor's facebook page, we have both assisted him at times (e.g. he does theory classes like I do, to help him I gave him all the PowerPoint presentations I've developed over the years).She said that he rated himself 5 stars, he mentioned Connie's school and rated it as 4½ stars - Gosh isn't that NICE of him???

Re twitter, I haven't used it or subscribed to it.Twitter caused the downfall of an NT politician: 3 years ago the NT elected a new conservative government - after a few months the Chief Minister came back from a business trip to Japan, to find that he'd been ousted while away overseas.Recently the second Chief Minister just barely survived an early morning attempted coup.The ex-Chief Minister was in Indonesia at the time on his job as an overseas delegate or consul or whatever, he twittered a picture of himself laughing his head off at the guy who back-stabbed him - the outraged Chief Minister sacked him.What a circus.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

I speak to a few instructors on Facebook, a few of them are people I have met through DTT, the main difference is you know who you are talking to, you haven't got to deal with people who hide behind made up names who want to cause trouble with their posts. If you do have problems you can block people.

With regards to the forum being quiet, maybe that is indicative of the fact that those on here now are busy instructors who post "sensible" comments without the intention of deliberately trying to inflame situations or upset others. Either way I would rather have it quiet then go back to reports being sent in all the time.If you haven't got time to post you must be busy, which means your business is successful happy days!

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Evan wrote:

I speak to a few instructors on Facebook, a few of them are people I have met through DTT, the main difference is you know who you are talking to, you haven't got to deal with people who hide behind made up names who want to cause trouble with their posts. If you do have problems you can block people.

With regards to the forum being quiet, maybe that is indicative of the fact that those on here now are busy instructors who post "sensible" comments without the intention of deliberately trying to inflame situations or upset others. Either way I would rather have it quiet then go back to reports being sent in all the time.If you haven't got time to post you must be busy, which means your business is successful happy days!

This doesn't paint a good picture of the forum, yourself an Administrator would rather see the forum quiet as to avoid dealing with whinging reports from the members who become upset from other points of view

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

I would prefer it to be quiet too rather than have to put up with the idiots who used to cause so much aggravation, one of whom wasn't even an ADI.If you think it's too quiet on here you could always find other forums. This one is reserved for information and sensible conversations.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

This forum was a great source of knowledge when I was first an ADI and there is still lots of searchable information on here. Facebook and Twitter are generally more lightweight in content, however since most ADIs are registered on Facebook & Twitter because of their pupils and marketing purposes it is easy for ADIs to post on Facebook and Twitter. This is bound to have an effect on the amount of posting on here.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Fulton, why would any sane person want to spend their time on a forum dealing with troublemakers? Whilst sensible debate is a good way of discussing issues, posts made to deliberately provoke, or inflame and cause worthless argument are not.

With regards to "quiet", many of the members on this forum, have been on here for years, whilst we may have had differences on some topics in the past, I think their exists a mutual respect and regard for each other.

Over the years many PDI's have sought and received help from experienced ADI's on this forum, sadly at times some "members" delighted in trying to mock their questions and also some of the answers.

With regards debate, I have no doubt that should any of the members, (yourself included) wish to post a topic on the boards, the answers given will be thought out, won't be of a mocking nature, and should any cause offence, then they will if necessary be removed.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Evan wrote:

I speak to a few instructors on Facebook, a few of them are people I have met through DTT, the main difference is you know who you are talking to, you haven't got to deal with people who hide behind made up names who want to cause trouble with their posts. If you do have problems you can block people.

With regards to the forum being quiet, maybe that is indicative of the fact that those on here now are busy instructors who post "sensible" comments without the intention of deliberately trying to inflame situations or upset others. Either way I would rather have it quiet then go back to reports being sent in all the time.If you haven't got time to post you must be busy, which means your business is successful happy days!

I would just like to point out that Evan's comment is from the perspective of Admin, in particular the comment

Either way I would rather have it quiet then go back to reports being sent in all the time.

which has been taken out of context by Fulton.

A while ago Admin were very "busy" dealing with a large number of reported posts regarding complaints from troublesome members, this situation has now been rectified and the forum is "quiet" with the lack of reported posts Admin have to deal with. Please remember Admin are working people that give up their spare time to manage this forum and I too prefer it without the troublesome members, this means that I can get on with my job as an ADI and not have the worry of troublesome members disrupting the forum in my absence.

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Evan wrote:

Fulton, why would any sane person want to spend their time on a forum dealing with troublemakers? Whilst sensible debate is a good way of discussing issues, posts made to deliberately provoke, or inflame and cause worthless argument are not.

With regards to "quiet", many of the members on this forum, have been on here for years, whilst we may have had differences on some topics in the past, I think their exists a mutual respect and regard for each other.

Over the years many PDI's have sought and received help from experienced ADI's on this forum, sadly at times some "members" delighted in trying to mock their questions and also some of the answers.

With regards debate, I have no doubt that should any of the members, (yourself included) wish to post a topic on the boards, the answers given will be thought out, won't be of a mocking nature, and should any cause offence, then they will if necessary be removed.

It appears a fantastic forum and hopefully continues as such without the input of less desirable members

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

Forums are a great repository of knowledge, with searchable content, listed topics and such. FB is very ephemeral and basically has no memory. Threads just go round and round in certain groups cos anyone new to the group can't see what's been discussed before.Nothing wrong with revisiting topics and new folk asking 'old' questions, but it happens a lot on FB which winds some folk up. "oh no, not again!" esp on controversial topics.I don't use other driving forums, so don't know how they compare, but this one has been great. I hope more folk discover it. Somewhere for slightly more relaxed and mature discussion than fb tends to be. There are certain skills and attitudes needed to post on the interweb - it's easy to get drawn into pointless arguments, to misread the written word, to take it all personally etc. Once you've survived a while you recognise how to avoid conflict. This forum has a lot of experienced users left who aren't the idiot trolls of a while ago! And also a vast amount of experience in driving!Hopefully, a 'new generation' of users will 'find' forums like this after perhaps becoming disenchanted with the puppies and kittens on fb. Some ADI fb groups seem to be working quite well but I hope forums keep going and survive the current dip as I think they do offer something different to fb.

"I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car"

Re: Is the forum fading away ?

I have an idea to raise activity. If anyone who's on FB sees a question searching for some info that is definitely on this forum the link should be given to this forum. That will save them time and humiliation.

"What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself." Abraham Maslow